The Star Maker (1996)

This critically acclaimed motion picture from the creator of the Academy Award(R)-Winning favorite CINEMA PARADISO, was heralded as a masterpiece by critics from coast to coast. Joe Morelli is the "star maker" -- a con man who travels from one small town to the next, claiming to be a talent scout for a top movie studio. And wherever Joe goes, people turn out in droves for a chance at being seen and becoming the world's next big-screen sensation! A lively and entertaining story about the magic of movies and the extraordinary dreams of everyday people, THE STAR MAKER earned a 1995 Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign Language Film!

Beautiful, original--an engaging work of art

Joe Morelli (Sergio Castellitto) is a flimflam man who is driving around the rural villages of Sicily shortly after World War II selling potential stardom for fifteen hundred lira. He has a motion picture camera and loudspeaker on his truck. As he drives through the villages he broadcasts to the people that he is from the film industry of Roma and he is giving screen tests in order to discover natural talent.

He sets up his truck and tent typically in the town square. His technique is to tell everyone that they have a wonderful face, hidden talent, that they are naturals and diamonds in the rough. He hands out fliers with some dialogue from "Gone with the Wind" on them that they should practice reading before appearing before his camera. He has discovered that people will fall for his flattery and pay him for the fake screen tests.

As we watch the film we discover that people will put their hearts and souls into the experience of appearing before his camera. They don't just read the lines from Gone with the Wind. They tell their life stories in miniature. They bare their hearts and souls to the flimflam man in the hope that someone will hear and see their anguish, their pain, their experience. To Morelli, who has been to Hollywood and failed, this is just a way to make a lira. He has a gift for the hustle and is blind to the real emotion that he evokes.

A woman believes her teenaged daughter has the talent to make it in the movies. She begs Morelli to take her to Roma. She even has sex with him and promises to allow him to be her daughter's first lover. But Morelli moves on to the next town. He is stopped by the local police chief, but Morelli manages to flatter him into appearing before his camera and then applauds the chief's performance. Three highwaymen stop to rob Morelli. He is able to convince them that Roma longs for their raw talent. And so on, as he travels over the cobblestones and over the winding roads.

Finally he meets beautiful Beata (Tiziana Lodato) who is 15 or 18. She isn't sure. She works in the convent, bathing the sick and scrubbing the floors. She exposes herself to the local tax man to raise the 1500 lira needed for Morelli's screen test. She is strikingly beautiful from head to toe, and the tax man exclaims, "You are a statue!" when he sees her body. Morelli is reluctant to get involved with someone so young even though she throws herself at him.

What happens after this I will not say since it would spoil the film for those who have not seen it. But watch for the con man to get conned, among other things. Despite his villainy, there is a sense that Morelli is a man that we can identify with and understand. I think it is this quality that director Giuseppe Tornatore has developed in his character that carries the film, and Sergio Castellitto whom I saw recently in Non ti muovere (Don't Move) (2004) really becomes the part.

Tornatore, who made a splash with the critically acclaimed Cinema Paradiso (1988) wrote the original material here and worked on the script in addition to directing. While I thought Cinema Paradiso was an excellent film, I liked this one even more. Both are original works of art, but I found L'uomo delle stelle more engaging. Particularly striking are the beautiful village scenes, the faces of the people, and the photography of the Sicilian countryside and ruins. January 22, 2008

Post WWII Italy with the good and the bad; , humor, satire and a few tears

Another one of Tornatore's journeys, beutifully filmed and narranted. This time, it's a con man travelling through Sicilly (Tornatorre's birthplace) following the war. As usual, that's the canvas over which Tornatorre paints a critical picture of Italy of the period - full of hope (all towns and village people who want to try out for the movies), satire (the bandits, who also want to pose for the camera) and tragedy (a love story).

Tornatorre remains true to his exceptional skill to weave the beautiful, the profane and the ugly - all with a blend of sarcasm, nostalgia and human understanding.

This is another wonderful of Tornatore's movies - fans of the director will appreciate it subtle beauty, as will the general viewer who is looking for a richly painted canvas of Italian life in the poor south following the war. For the Tornatore fans, I also recommend "Everybody's fine" if you can find it ("Cinema Paradiso", "Malena" and "The Legend of 1900" being the more well known of the director's movies). July 17, 2007

Super!

One of my favorite films. It sweeps you into the drama of a fake moviemaker and a village girl in Italy. The end is surprinsingly correct.
A lesson to be learned.
Marcelo Lanat Júnior. June 25, 2007

Star Maker

If you liked Cinema Paradiso, this is another one I would say you see.

I would recommend it. May 7, 2007

Another one of Tornatore's dark fables

Ever since Miramax edited the dark last act out of Cinema Paradiso to make a more sentimental film, Giuseppe Tornatore has been written off by many as something of a lightweight. On the face of it, The Star Maker would seem to have the perfect setup for a whimsical comedy of love and redemption as it follows a conman winding his way through post-war Sicily charging the locals 1,500 lira for screen tests he never even bothers to develop. The locals unburden their souls and confess their desperation to him as his camera becomes a confessional, building up a vivid portrait of a desperate place in a desperate time, but it makes little impression on him. In fact, despite the beautiful photography and the `cute' setup as one simple local girl follows him in the hopes of stardom and escape, it's resolutely unsentimental - redemption is denied and he never really learns anything from the experience. Even in the final scenes, he never really gets it.

Unfortunately, this very misleadingly packaged DVD appears to be cut by some seven minutes from the Italian version (with one of the most gaping jumps in continuity I've seen in a film since Tom Horn), but there's more than enough surviving to mark this out as a winner, more bitter than sweet.

No extras (aside from some promos for other Miramax releases) but the good subtitled 2.35:1 widescreen transfer shows off the ambitious and accomplished camerawork well. December 16, 2006

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